Saint Paul Union Depot

[NickP]

Also, according to the MPR article " 5 percent of the nation's rail traffic moves through the freight tracks along the depot."
Wow! I had no idea about this.

[Tcmetro]

It is the BNSF Transcon line which is one of the busiest freight lines in the country. Although, I imagine anything from the West Coast to Chicago is very busy.

[mulad]

Yeah, both BNSF and Canadian Pacific have transcontinental lines to Chicago running through the area, and Union Pacific has a significant presence as well. CP apparently has more overall traffic than BNSF through St. Paul (probably because their overall network funnels Chicago-bound traffic right through here), though a large chunk of that consists of local traffic and transfers between different yards in the Twin Cities. Twin Cities and Western, the railroad at the center of the whole SWLRT mess, also goes through the area to reach CP's yard, along the tracks next to the depot. For long-distance traffic, BNSF and CP were almost dead even. The East Metro Rail Capacity Study document has a lot of details -- roughly 10,000 cars per day through the area across 122 trains. The tracks paralleling the depot platforms only see a fraction of that traffic, but go to the wye and points just a bit downriver, and things get very busy. I've heard that the Hoffman interlocking just southeast of the wye has about 115 trains per day.

As a point of comparison, the Blue Line runs about 200 trains per day, though they're short (probably the equivalent of 3-5 freight cars for length). Of course, each freight train appears to be averaging about 80 cars.

[Ottergoose]

Are there rules preventing freight companies from adding passenger cars to their trains, or vice versa amtrak adding more freight cars? Airlines often add cargo to passenger flights, so why don't railroads?

Amtrak trains hauled freight through the mid-2000's; lots of speculation online in other forums if you'd like to look.

Even when it was still profitable to haul passengers, the railroads largely ran them as separate trains. Freight trains are significantly slower (lower top speed, takes longer to accelerate / decelerate at each station), and don't typically run on a "schedule" as the general public would interpret it.

[FISHMANPET]

You also can't shunt passengers on a siding for hours and hours like you could cargo.

[talindsay]

When there was a substantial need for train-based "fast freight" it made sense to mix passengers with fast freight. Since fast freight is generally handled by air and/or truck today, rail freight (still the large majority of freight service I believe) is not generally very compatible with passenger service. There must have been some level of need for rail-based fast freight if Amtrak was doing it into the 2000s (I didn't know that) but it would be a niche now.

[mulad]

I believe BNSF runs a daily overnight train between the Twin Cities and Chicago for UPS. A couple of years ago, I practically got run over by the stream of trailer trucks coming down Snelling to the intermodal yard across Energy Park Drive from the Saints stadium. Not sure if they still do that or not, though.

While I think a fast freight service would be a good side service for an HSR corridor, it still doesn't necessarily make sense to mix the stuff on a single train, except for small volumes that can be handled similar to baggage.

[Ottergoose]

Apparently Amtrak still offers some express freight service: http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentSe ... 1267371736

Here's a post from the Yahoo! Empire Builder group:

In the late 90's-early 2000's Mail was handled CHI-MSP in express boxes and then trucked to locations west of there including, Fargo, Grand Forks, Billings and Seattle. For a time, Roadrailers were handled to MSP as a connection off ot train 49 from the Sweeney Mail Facility at Springfield, MA. This was supposed to be a same day connection in Chicago.

As an interesting side note, eastbound 8 handled loads of Anderson WIndows ex MSP.

And then of course there were the Freezers that went to and from Wenachee

In other words, Amtrak's Empire Builder hauled quite a bit of mail out of Chicago and MA for points west, loads from Andersen Windows east, and produce in refrigerator cars out of Washington.

[David Greene]

You also can't shunt passengers on a siding for hours and hours like you could cargo.

Really? Is that why we sat for 4-5 hours in Indiana waiting for freight trains to pass by?

[mulad]

Scheduling trains has been likened to the conveyor belt at a sushi restaurant -- each train gets a "slot" and has to be on it in order for the whole system to keep running. If the slot goes by and the Amtrak train isn't there to catch it, they can get stuck waiting for the next one to come by. Single-tracked lines are especially difficult to schedule -- headways are limited by the amount of time it takes for a train to go through a single-tracked section, and allowing trains to pass each other may require careful handling of which train stays on the main line and which goes onto the siding, for multiple sidings in a row. It's pretty difficult to get a train to jump ahead in the queue unless it has been planned ahead.

I'm not entirely sure who to blame, and it probably differs on a case-by-case basis. Passenger trains operated by Amtrak are legally supposed to have priority, but there are limits to what's practical to achieve. Nonetheless, I think the freight operators are often a bit more strict than they should be. Still, Amtrak has been known to have their own share of troubles -- Canadian National responded to an Amtrak complaint about poor scheduling by saying that Amtrak often didn't manage to leave the Amtrak-owned tracks leading to/from Chicago Union Station on time. If the train is already late before it even hits freight track, then who's really to blame? (You may end up thinking Amtrak, and that's probably true a lot of the time, though I'm sure there are cases where it's really a problem on the freight side that caused the issue.)

But anyway, I think it would be most beneficial for the state/federal governments, Amtrak, and the freights to get together and work on ensuring that important passenger corridors are at least double-tracked, which generally makes scheduling much easier.

[FISHMANPET]

If I recall correctly, Amtrak has priority on their scheduled time slot, but if they miss it they're at the whims of freight railroads, which causes cascading delays for the rest of that journey. Mulad can probalby confirm/deny that though.

[mulad]

That's my understanding, though I haven't managed to find the correct underlying legislation / rulemakings at play, and I'm not sure if I could understand them if I did.

[talindsay]

My understanding is that you're correct about time slots; but from Amtrak (when I was last stuck on a train from the east that got out of its slot) I got the impression that there isn't actually legislation around passenger rail priority - this is the result of the contracts Amtrak signed with the freight rail systems to get use of their tracks.

What really *needs* to happen is for Amtrak to get dedicated corridors everywhere that passenger rail is expected to have high volumes (like it already has on the Northeast Corridor between NYC and Washington, and I believe on the Pacific Northwest corridor), and for it to have legal priority over all other traffic on other segments. Truly, given that the US people paid for the construction of the railroads in the first place, indirectly by granting imminent domain authority to the railroad companies and allowing them to sell the land that they acquired at a profit, public ownership should have been part of the bargain. But of course, it wasn't, so here we are.

[talindsay]

I'll note that I've heard from numerous sources that BNSF is the most helpful in terms of letting Amtrak get back on schedule; CP, CN, and UP are apparently really bad.

[mulad]

From 49 USC § 24308 - Use of facilities and providing services to Amtrak:

(c) Preference Over Freight Transportation.— Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing unless the Board orders otherwise under this subsection. A rail carrier affected by this subsection may apply to the Board for relief. If the [Surface Transportation] Board, after an opportunity for a hearing under section 553 of title 5, decides that preference for intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation materially will lessen the quality of freight transportation provided to shippers, the Board shall establish the rights of the carrier and Amtrak on reasonable terms.

...and there are other references to giving priority to Amtrak service throughout that section (and probably others). Of course, there is wiggle room in the legislation itself, and I'm sure that the contracts that Amtrak has with each of the host railroads have a number of clauses which weaken their ability to enforce priority of service. (Isn't it bizarre how you can sign away your rights with a contract, or basically be forced to because there aren't any other options? Sigh.)

This Railway Age article goes through the history of passenger train preference a bit, including some notes about how part of the law that I mentioned has been invalidated -- a method for measuring the on-time performance at a more fine-grained level and holding the freight railroads accountable. The Association of American Railroads sued over it because the rules were being made by Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration, and the AAR objected because Amtrak is technically a private company. So there isn't a consistent nationwide method for determining who's at fault for delays -- the methods for figuring that out apparently need to be negotiated on a corridor-by-corridor basis between Amtrak and the host railroads.

[FISHMANPET]

(like it already has on the Northeast Corridor between NYC and Washington, and I believe on the Pacific Northwest corridor)

BNSF and UP own the lines the Cascades travels on, which is what I'd consider Pacific Northwest. The closest Amtrak is to owning anything is the Point Defiance Bypass tracks, which are currently owned by Sound Transit.

[David Greene]

In the case I'm talking about, there had been a freight derailment on the line feeding into the mainline around Lake Michigan. Our Amtrak train happened to get there just after the other track was cleared and we literally sat there for hours waiting for all the backed-up freight to roll on by.

So who's late here? I don't know if our train was late but the freight traffic was certainly late because it had been backed up behind a derailment.

I can confirm that if Amtrak leaves a station late, it's screwed. Because our train into Chicago was delayed for hours, I missed the connection to MSP by literally minutes. Our conductor pleaded with the station to hold the Empire Builder, but to no avail. I talked to the station manager about it and she related that she had to get the train out to avoid screwage by the freight companies.

I did put get up in a *really* nice hotel for my trouble, though.

This, TC&W's behavior around SW LRT and talindsay's point about why the railroads exist at all (which I have been saying for years) have convinced me we need a socialist-style government takeover of freight and renegotiation of terms. It's totally, totally ridiculous the way things are run now.

[mark]

I worked for Amtrak's loyalty program very briefly many years ago. Im over 90% certain that Amtrak owns the north east corridor tracks, as well as Hiawatha and some on the CA coast (less sure about that).

[commissioner]

Amtrak owns the Northeast Corridor except from New York to New Haven, and the line from Porter, IN to somewhere near Detroit. They also own the tracks within a mile give or take of Union Station in Chicago. AFAIK they don't own any other track.

[FISHMANPET]

What Amtrak owns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Trains_and_tracks